Early life

Fer­rer was born in San­ta Mon­i­ca, Cal­i­for­nia, the old­est of five chil­dren of Puer­to Rican Acad­e­my Award-win­ner José Fer­rer and Amer­i­can singer Rose­mary Clooney. Ferrer’s sib­lings are Maria, Gabriel, Mon­si­ta, and Rafael, also an actor. Fer­rer was raised in Hol­ly­wood, and as a teenag­er his inter­ests shift­ed toward music. He played the drums on Kei­th Moon’s Two Sides of the Moon. Ferrer’s friend, Bill Mumy (“Will Robin­son” on the tele­vi­sion clas­sic Lost In Space), cast him as a drum­mer in the series Sun­shine, his first tele­vi­sion role.

Career

Fer­rer began his career in the ear­ly 1980s mak­ing guest appear­ances on episod­ic tele­vi­sion. In 1983, he was giv­en a small part as a wait­er in The Man Who Wasn’t There. He also had a small part in Star Trek III: The Search for Spock (1984) as the Excel­sior helm offi­cer. He had a major role in the 1987 action movie Robo­Cop as aspir­ing, cocaine-snort­ing cor­po­rate exec­u­tive Bob Mor­ton. Since then, Fer­rer has been cast in many major movies, usu­al­ly in the role of flam­boy­ant vil­lains with a sense of humour. Ferrer’s notable roles include a sin­is­ter bik­er in Valenti­no Returns, an overzeal­ous engi­neer in Deep­Star Six, a resource­ful vig­i­lante in Revenge, Com­man­der Arvid Har­bin­ger in the com­e­dy Hot Shots! Part Deux, Lloyd Hen­reid in the Stephen King mini series The Stand, and a drug infor­mant in Traf­fic. He has occa­sion­al­ly tak­en on lead parts as well, such as The Har­vest and The Night Fli­er.

In the ear­ly 1990s, Fer­rer appeared on three prime­time TV series simul­ta­ne­ous­ly: as D.A. Todd Spurri­er in Shannon’s Deal (1989–1991), as Cajun cop Beau Jack Bow­man in Bro­ken Badges (1990–1991), and as cyn­i­cal, wit­ti­ly abra­sive FBI foren­sics spe­cial­ist Albert Rosen­field in Twin Peaks (1990–91). Fer­rer reprised the role of Albert in the movie Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me (1992). He played anoth­er med­ical exam­in­er on the small screen, Dr. Gar­ret Macy, in the tele­vi­sion crime/drama series Cross­ing Jor­dan (2001–07).

Fer­rer per­formed as the voice of the Heretic leader in the video game Halo 2, as well as the pro­tag­o­nist, Jack, in the video game BioShock. In 1999, at the 41st Gram­my Awards, he was nom­i­nat­ed for “Best Spo­ken Word Album for Chil­dren” in Disney’s The Lion King II, “Simba’s Pride Read-Along”. In 2003, Fer­rer made his New York stage debut in the off-Broad­way pro­duc­tion of The Exon­er­at­ed.

Fer­rer played a supervil­lain called The Weath­er­man in the failed 1997 TV pilot, Jus­tice League of Amer­i­ca. Lat­er in the year, Fer­rer pro­vid­ed the voice for a sim­i­lar char­ac­ter, Weath­er Wiz­ard, in the Super­man: The Ani­mat­ed Series episode “Speed Demons”. Fer­rer also voiced Aqua­man in anoth­er Super­man: Ani­mat­ed episode, “A Fish Sto­ry”. Fer­rer has also pro­vid­ed voice-over roles in the TV series Robot Chick­en (2006) and Amer­i­can Dad! (2007).

Fer­rer played Jonas Bled­soe on NBC’s short-lived update of the Bion­ic Woman series. Fer­rer also starred in anoth­er short-lived NBC series, Kings, in 2009 as a mil­i­tary com­man­der of Gath. He played Los Ange­les Police Lieu­tenant Felix Valdez in the 2011 Life­time police pro­ce­dur­al dra­ma, The Pro­tec­tor. Also in 2011 he start­ed a mul­ti­ple episode guest role on the final sea­son of Des­per­ate House­wives.

He cur­rent­ly has a recur­ring role in NCIS: Los Ange­les as NCIS assis­tant direc­tor Owen Granger. On Feb­ru­ary 6, 2013 Miguel Fer­rer was pro­mot­ed to a series reg­u­lar for the fifth sea­son. He also appeared in the 2013 film Iron Man 3 as the Vice-Pres­i­dent.

Personal life

He is divorced from actress Leilani Sarelle and has two sons, Lukas and Rafael, from that mar­riage, and a son Jose Robert from a rela­tion­ship with Kate Dor­nan. He has been mar­ried to Lori Wein­traub since 2005. His broth­er Gabriel Fer­rer is mar­ried to singer Deb­by Boone. Gabriel and Deb­by are the par­ents of young artist Gabi Fer­rer and her twin, Dustin Fer­rer. His oth­er broth­er, Rafael Fer­rer, is also an actor. He is actor George Clooney’s cousin on his mother’s side.